Eric Bischoff Not a Fan of How WWE Shoots Backstage Segments

Nov 7, 2020 - by Steve Gerweck

Eric Bischoff discussed during a recent edition of 83 Weeks why he doesn’t like the way WWE shoots backstage interviews.

Here is what he had to say:

Eric Bischoff on the idea behind the “confessional” interview style: “One of the mainstays of the reality television format is a confessional, as they refer to it in reality TV…..if it’s Jersey Shore, you see the drama, you see the conflicts, you see all that stuff playing out amongst the cast. And then they pull the cast aside and you get their personal perspectives of the issues that you’ve been watching play out. In those confessionals, the talent doesn’t look directly into the camera. You don’t see the person interviewing the talent, but the story comes forth. As a viewer, you understand that if Eric Bischoff is on a reality show and he’s in the middle of this interview or confessional and being asked about how he feels about something that just happened a few moments ago in the beach house, I’m talking to someone, I’m sharing my perspective, I’m sharing my emotions, but I’m not doing it with a silly announcer standing there holding a mic in a static environment that looks completely artificial and then end up looking in the camera. And oh by the way, the camera isn’t moving all over the f***ing place and zooming in and out, which is so goddamn distracting.”

On why he doesn’t like the way WWE shoots promos and backstage interviews: “I don’t know know why anybody today continues to shoot promos that way because it’s about as 2001 as you can get. The technique has advanced so far beyond that. But for whatever reason, again, particularly in WWE and I’m not here to bang on them, but it is what it is. I’ve been bitching about this for the last 15 years so it’s nothing new. But goddamn, figure out a different way to shoot because they suck as they are – for the most part, not all of them. [Bruce] Prichard, you hearing me? Start looking at some of the ways people shoot some of these confessionals because it makes them feel so much more real and believable. You get sucked into the story because it feels believable. There is nothing f***ing believable about some talent standing backstage in a completely sterile environment that doesn’t really look like the talent would really be in that environment anyway – standing next to someone who is asking the question and setting the talent up for a response that for the most part doesn’t really drive a story anyway.”

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